As a Christian, are there any aspects of your religion that trouble you?

Question

Or that you'd like to modify?

Answer 1

Good question. As a person who has for the most part abandon his Christian faith, except for the perfunctory attendance at Church to appease devout family members, I can tell you of many things that bothered me while I counted myself among one of the faithful. In fact some of these things became contributing factors that led to my departure from the faith

First, the Trinitarian doctrine which espouses the nonsense that God the father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct individuals who are both equally powerful, coeternal, and yet are one, is a doctrine that is confusing, self-contradictory, and quite frankly superfluous.

Secondly, the doctrine of atonement, made no sense to me, and moreover seemed immoral. What does it mean after all for God to sacrifice himself? After all, if he cannot really forfeit his life, since he is eternal, how is it a sacrifice? It would be the equivalent of me loaning you money, but then getting paid back with interest and calling it a “sacrifice”. In order for it to be a sacrifice I have to give something up, without expecting anything equivalent in return, and certainly not more than what I was giving up. Once Jesus “sacrificed” himself, he didn’t lose anything, but gained a disembodied existence free of pain or any other affliction.

Thirdly, how does an innocent dying for the crimes of others, absolve the sins of others? It doesn’t. Only a sadist or a person with a warped sense of morality would think so. Suppose I caught you in the act of murder, and I said I would let you go if I am allowed to execute your innocent infant son. I would not be called a fair judge, but a deranged psycho.

Fourthly, Jesus was quite wrong, or silent about many salient aspects of our humanity and future. This seems strange if he is part of the omnipotent and omniscient Godhead. Jesus, and many of his Apostles preached a kingdom that would arrive within the generation of his contemporaries. Obviously that never happened. Christian apologists, have been concocting workarounds to this problem, that involve a figurative reading of these passages, even though nothing about the literary style of these passages warrants such a non-literal interpretation. Furthermore, Jesus was silent on both misogyny and slavery, two things that have lead to some of the greatest atrocities in mankind. Furthermore, his most vocal proponent, and author of much of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, gives explicit sanction both to chauvinistic views towards women and the practice of slavery. Given that the relegation of women to second class citizens and the practice of slavery were common during that time, we can tell just from these facts alone that the Bible is a product of man, and not the work of divine inspiration.

Fifthly, the arguments proposed by apologists of all stripes from Christian, Judaic, and Islamic, for the very existence of God as they commonly define him, lack cogency. Everything from cosmological, teleological, ontological, and moral arguments are easily disproved and shown to be self-contradictory in many cases. Much of this sort of polemic involves a lot of non sequitur, which in other words means that the arguments don’t even prove what they were intended to prove, even if they were found to be true.

My sixth reason is that an omnipotent, omniscient and ever present God of Christian theology cannot be reconciled with this world. The problem of evil is one that theologians have been grappling with for centuries, and the theodicies they come up with either has to ignore his omnipotence, his omniscience, his ubiquity, or resort to flimsy and easily refutable recourses to freewill in order to make their case.

Finally, and probably most importantly, Christian theology, like most religious ideas, seek a final refuge in the term “mystery”. If they cannot prove a particular tenet essential to their faith, they just resort to calling it “mystery of faith”, and leave it at that as if that ends the issue decisively. It’s this sort of dismissive attitude to legitimate intellectual misgivings that I detested the most. If you don’t know why you believe in something, just say so, but don’t resort to this form of intellectual dishonesty.

Answer 2

look up Hindu atheist. this is what they do. they have not got faith in the religion yet merely persist with it for cultural reasons and as a existence equipment. Religions create civilisations - so the equipment works -yet how the political and cultural panorama seems is the real difficulty. Blind followers are a dime a dozen yet so are atheist rebels and hypocrites. faith is an awareness and theory in regulations and structures although this is no longer immunity from people who cheat the equipment. yet we've technology, philosophy and arithmetic besides to develop our lot and be waiting to comprehend. Criminals are often lacking in faith, that's why they experience they no empathy in the direction of society as an entire.

Answer 3

No. There is nothing that needs modification in the New Testament pattern. People just need to follow it.

Problems come in when people DO modify it. That's why there are so many denominations.

Answer 4

Most christians are more interested in the philosophy of the bible than trying to seek personal revelations from Him. The bible is important yes but if they aren't getting revelations and experience from Him, than the bible is a book where the verses mentioned can be twisted to suit one's desire. If they have revelations from Him, than the verses will be twisted to suit the truth. The bible mentioned that a helper is sent to guide them, if they welcome the helper their God Jesus will be able to change them. If not, then their life will be dry.

Just note as reference.

Answer 5

Where is the mother principle. We have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (ghost) but no divine female principle and I find this very curious and somewhat disturbing............

Answer 6

Yes.
I wish that we (self included) would actually read the Bible and pray and rely on GOD's direction. When we invoke our self righteousness all sorts of nasty things happen. Basically I wish we would say what we do. Do what we say. And mean it.

Cool Question

Answer 7

Yes. If I could not reach my own family N extended family with the message of salvation thru Jesus Christ.

Answer 8

No,just those I would like to live more completely.

Answer 9

My religion? No.

Fred Phelp's "religion" - definitely.

Answer 10

most of the aspects.
im pro-gays, pro-choice, believe in evolution, etc